


The Peace of Dreams

by wargoddess



Series: Bran's Dreamer [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, May/December, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:12:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hawke sends Feynriel to the Circle, his torment by the demons grows worse.  But in the Fade, it's easy to find what you need, if you try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Peace of Dreams

     As he sat slumped in the garden of a Gallows that did not exist, waiting for the demons gathered there to devour him, Feynriel found himself watching the man on the far bench, who was reading a book.

     The man was nobody.  Just another dreaming soul -- and not a mage, so the demons did not see him and did not trouble him.  Feynriel thought at first that the man did not see the demons in turn; many of the folk he encountered in dreams could not.  But then one of them drifted close enough to shadow the man's book.  He looked up, glowered at the creature in almost palpable annoyance, then shifted to another part of the bench where the peculiar light of the Fade was unencumbered.  But more demons gathered in the garden by the moment, for they had all sensed Feynriel's weariness.  Another demon moved into the man's light and, with an exasperated sigh, he rose to leave.  As he moved across the flagstones, he wove through the growing crowd of demons unerringly.  He could see every one of them.

     Is it only the book? Feynriel wondered.  _You sit surrounded by monsters that would have you alive if they could, and only this troubles you?_

     He realized he'd thought the words loudly when the man stopped and turned, glaring at him.

     "I deal with worse monsters than this every day," he snapped.  "What troubles me is never getting any _peace and quiet_."  Then he walked out, passing through a demon that was blocking the door.

     After a long while, and with a great effort, Feynriel pushed to his feet.  The demons shied back a little, some of them looking frustrated at his sudden animation.  Sometimes it even seemed as though they feared him...  But of course that was impossible.

     He stumbled after the man.  The demons parted around him, then trailed behind him, like swirls in shadowed water.

#

     There is no time in the Fade.  When Feynriel found the man again, what seemed to him a few minutes later, the man wore different clothing and had shaved off his moustache, leaving only the goatee.  He was also reading a different book, this time while sitting on a grassy hill beneath a blooming apple tree.

     Feynriel sank down on the sward beside him, rubbing his arms.  He could feel the cracks in himself, the wounds through which his soul was bleeding out; he shivered with the loss, and the chill that crept in its wake.  The demons gathered at a distance this time -- at the bottom of the hill, surrounding it.  But they did not come close, for some reason, and Feynriel was grateful for the reprieve.  He sat there, dully, thinking of nothing and wondering if this was what it felt like to actually rest, until finally the man snapped his book closed.  "Are you going to just sit there the whole while?"

     It was hard to think of words.  "Am... am I disturbing you?"

     "No, obviously.  But you're just sitting there, _dripping_ or whatever it is you're doing."  He squinted at Feynriel, as if trying to see something hazy.  "I think."

     It was hard to make sense of words.  After a moment, Feynriel thought, _I don't know what else to do_.

     The man sighed in exasperation and held out a hand.  Another book appeared within it.  "Here, then, since you have so little imagination of your own."

     In confusion, Feynriel had no choice but to unfold himself and reach out to accept the book.  When he looked at the spine, it read _Hard in Hightown: Siege Harder_.  "What is this?"

     "That, young man, would be a book.  It is made of paper, as you can see, and someone has stamped ink on its pages.  There might even be glue involved."

     "I meant -- "

     "I know what you meant."  The man opened his own book and resumed reading.  Its spine read _How I Met Your Magister_.

     Confused, Feynriel stared at the book for a long while.  Eventually it occurred to him to open the cover, which he did, slowly.  It felt very heavy.  He found the starting page and began reading; strangely, the book seemed to grow lighter as he did.  It wasn't badly written, though not his sort of thing at all.  He kept reading, though, and found himself engrossed.

     When he reached the end and looked up, the man was gone; he had awakened from his dream, and left the Fade.  Feynriel sat on the hill for awhile longer, feeling the breeze that the man's dream had conjured, breathing the scent of apple blossoms.  It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed a book.  He was glad he'd gotten the chance to do it again.  Before.

     The demons stayed at the bottom of the hill.  They were still waiting.  He could still taste the stink of their eagerness.  Yet they had given him room to breathe, so he breathed.

#

     He felt the parting of the aethers by a familiar presence, and this time he got up to go looking.  Eventually he found the man lounging on a long, elegant couch, apparently asleep.  Light shone from above, illuminating the couch and a thick, plush carpet around it; the rest of the room was shadowed and still.

     No one slept within a dream, not truly.  Feynriel sat on the carpet beside the man's couch, and watched the demons gather about the edges of the indistinct room.

     "Well, at least you have the courtesy to be quiet," said the man, not opening his eyes.

     _I have nothing to say_.

     "Good," the man said, yawning.  "I hear enough of everyone else's endless prattling when I'm awake."

     No one talked to Feynriel anymore.  Except the Knight Captain, trying to convince him to accept the Rite of Tranquility.

     The man said nothing more, and after awhile Feynriel laid his head on the edge of the couch, relaxing and listening to him pretend to sleep.

#

     They stood on the Wounded Coast, gazing out over jagged rocks and rolling waves, breathing fresh salt air.  Rather, the man watched the sea; Feynriel watched the man.

     In this dream he was calm and content, his gaze distant, his expression at peace.  Usually he was sterner, quicker to anger.  Like this, he seemed younger -- though Feynriel still had trouble fathoming human ages after being raised in the Alienage, despite being human himself.  They all looked worldly and weathered, to him.

     "Are you going to stare at me endlessly?" the man asked, not looking away from the view.  Feynriel lowered his gaze.  "I didn't say I _minded_ ," the man added, with a hint of his old irritation.  "I just wondered whether you would."

     "If you allow me," Feynriel said, looking up again because he could.

     "And what, pray tell, are you hoping to see?"

     Feynriel just shook his head, rubbing his arms again.  "I hope for nothing."

     "You just like looking at me, is that it?"  Without waiting for an answer, the man sighed, stretching.  "Well, I suppose I should be flattered."  Feynriel could feel that he was not, however.

     When the man spoke no more, Feynriel moved to sit on a boulder nearby.  The boulder shifted to conform to his buttocks, becoming comfortable; long used to this, he sighed and huddled in on himself again.  Down on the beach below, a desire demon hovered watching him.  When it saw Feynriel glance its way, it shimmered and became a facsimile of the man, smiling up at him in warm invitation.

     Was it to be the one?  Feynriel looked away, and did not care that the demon began to drift toward him.

     "Well, _that's_ rather insulting," said the man, throwing a look of distaste toward the demon.  He put a hand on one hip and glared at Feynriel.  "For the Maker's sake, I'd be a _pride_ demon, if anything."

     Feynriel blinked at him in surprise.  On the beach, the demon stopped, its expression changing to one of horror.  Its form blurred, edges twisting and warping; now it was a desire demon, now it was a pride demon, now it was gone.  Feynriel did not see this as he blurted, without thinking, "Sorry."

     "Yes, well."  The man folded his arms.  "Get it right."

#

     "My people," said Marethari, "I present to you:  our hope."

     "Oh, _certainly_ ," drawled the man, who was again sitting on a bench nearby, reading another book.  Feynriel had thought he wasn't paying attention.  "A Dalish Keeper, finding the hope of elvenkind in a half-human boy raised in the city Alienage.  And I have a _lovely_ mansion to sell you in the Deep Roads.  Furnished, even."

     "It's possible," said Feynriel.  He had hoped, once, that the Dalish might help him.  Hawke had forbidden it, made him go to the Circle instead, but he had not forgotten his mother's tales.  The Dalish valued magic, and if nothing else, Feynriel had that.  Enough to drown in.

     "Of course it is."  The man turned another page in his book.

     Which troubled Feynriel enough that he found himself reconsidering the demon's offer.  Of course it was a demon; everything was a demon in this place.  And he did not mind giving himself to it -- not anymore.  Tranquility, possession; death was death, was it not?  If the demon could give him a semblance of peace until it devoured him, he had decided to allow it.

     Still...  He sighed, shook his head, and willed the demon away.  Its form shivered and he felt it try to strike at him from behind the shield of illusion, but he had learned long ago that they could only hurt him if he allowed them to.  "Begone," he said wearily, and suddenly the garden was empty, save for the man.

     "My apologies if I was... interrupting," the man said, still not glancing up from his book.  Something in his voice made an innuendo of it.  "But really, I can't abide _transparent_ attempts to deceive.  Use some bloody skill if you're going to seduce someone, for Andraste's sake."

     Feynriel went over to sit beside the man, on the bench.  "They haven't much need for skill," he admitted.  "It's only a matter of time before one of them has me."

     "Hmm," the man said.  "If I may suggest:  you can do better."

     "I suppose," Feynriel said.  He was so tired.  There was plenty of room on the stone bench, so he shifted to his side, curling up beside the man.  "Is it pride to think so?"

     "What?"

     "Pride.  That's what kind of demon you said you would be."  He closed his eyes.  "You can devour me, if you want.  Just let it be... peaceful, like this.  That is all I want, anymore."

     There was a moment of silence.  Then, abruptly, the man snapped his book shut.  "You think I am a _demon_."

     "Of course.  Why else would I see you again and again like this?  Everything here wants something from me."

     Another silence.  This time, when the man spoke, he sounded less angry.  "I am painfully familiar with that state of affairs.  But I can assure you:  I am no demon."  A rustle of movement; Feynriel knew that the man shrugged.  "Granted, if I were, I would be lying right now."

     "Yes."  And Feynriel still did not care.  He'd meant what he'd said:  the man could kill him, if he wished.  He was tired of fighting.

     The man sighed.  "Shall I read to you?"

     "I would like that."

     "Hmm.  No concern for _what_ I might read?  You are appallingly indiscriminate."  So the man began to read aloud.  It was something about a Dalish elven hunter who kept chasing a Qunari craftswoman and trying to declare his love for her; in return, she threatened to beat him to death with a hammer.  It was complete absurdity, but the man's voice was soothing, and for a brief time Feynriel lost track of the worlds around him.  Had he... slept?  It was impossible.  And yet, when the man stopped reading, and Feynriel opened his eyes again, he felt better.  _Rested_.

     What sort of demon offered him terrible novels, and rest, in exchange for his life?  Pushing himself up, Feynriel found the man just sitting there, gazing at the garden and thinking of nothing.

     "Are you a spirit, then?"  Feynriel squinted at him, trying to see the seams of the illusion.  He could do that, when he tried.  But the man did not change.  "The Dalish do not believe in good spirits or evil ones.  I have never heard of a spirit of peace, though..."

     "Peace?"  The man snorted at this.

     "It is what you create, around you."  Feynriel frowned, making an abortive shape with his hands, trying to find the words for what defied logic.  "It is... what your soul seeks, again and again, whenever you come into the Fade.  If you aren't a spirit, then..."  He blinked, understanding.  "Then your life must be very difficult, in the mortal realm.  Your heart's dearest desire is for time to relax, and the freedom to do what you please."

     "That's everyone's dearest desire."

     Feynriel could only shake his head at this.  "Most people want the things that demons can give them.  Most people create worlds around themselves that are filled with fear, or desire, or many things at once.  All you want is -- this."  Cheap novels, ocean views, quiet gardens, and the time to savor them all.

     "Yes, well."  The man shrugged.  "No accounting for taste."  He conjured another book, and began flicking toward a marked place.

     "The only thing I do not understand," Feynriel said, frowning to himself, "is why you keep coming to _me_.  For me, you are a balm.  I am... better, in your presence.  But I have nothing to offer you, in turn."

     "Your scintillating conversation and overwhelming presence?"  The man turned another page.

     Feynriel smiled.  Then he stopped, because he had not smiled in a long while, and it felt strange to do so.  Strange -- but not unpleasant.

     He sat there, savoring the novelty of contentment, until the man faded back into waking.

#

     "Such a clever boy," said Vincento.

     "Well, this one's not even trying, is it?" said the man.

     Feynriel glanced away from the desk where his "father" was trying to teach him about accounting.  The subject matter was genuinely interesting, which was why Feynriel had even bothered paying attention.  Now, however, he had to concede:  it really _hadn't_ been a very good ploy on the demon's part.  Perhaps it would have worked back when he'd actually been as young as the dream kept trying to make him, but not now.

     He stood, letting the desk and younger appearance fall away from him like shed clothing, and went over to the man.  The demon trailed behind him, affronted, trying to persuade him to pay attention to it again, but he ignored it, and gradually its sound and presence vanished.  "What is your name?"

     The man was in a plush chair this time, with his feet up on an ottoman, sipping a glass of good dark wine.  Feynriel had never had good dark wine -- nothing like that was ever sold in the Alienage -- but he knew that this was good because the man knew that it was good.  The man glanced over at him, amused.  "Suddenly you care?"

     Feynriel blinked, thrown.  Of course he cared, but they were the only mortals in this realm of spirits; what need was there to know names when _you_ and _I_ would do?  After a moment, the man shook his head and said, "Bran.  And you are Feynriel."

     Bran, Bran, Bran.  A spirit gained power if one said its name three times.  "How -- "

     "The demons whine of you endlessly, when I bother to listen to them.  'Feynriel is breaking,' they said when I first saw you.  Though that was some time ago, and if you are breaking, you're doing it very slowly."

     "I'm dying."

     "You don't seem to be doing a good job of that, either.  Are you perhaps incompetent?"

     Feynriel considered.  There was no time in the Fade, it was true.  In the real world that he had left -- years? -- ago, he had lain down to sleep, knowing full well the nightmares waited to draw him in and might not let him go.  He had already heard the Knight Captain's warning, delivered in the form of a question:  _"Is it not better at least to be alive, and unpossessed, than dead?"_   Which proved that Cullen did not truly understand what being made Tranquil meant.  As well ask _is it not better to be dead than dead?_

     "I will either be made Tranquil," he said, "or the demons will take me.  In either case, this me -- the me that you see before you -- will be gone."

     Bran looked skeptical.  "If you die, no doubt it will be of boredom, since you spend all of your time in the dreams of a man who is excited by literary trash."

     Feynriel could not help smiling again.  "Perhaps.  May I sit with you again?"

     "Do as you please."  But Feyriel thought that Bran liked having him there.

     So he sat on the floor near Bran's legs, and listened while Bran turned pages, and when he grew comfortably weary -- as opposed to the weariness of despair, which made this another novelty -- he shifted closer and rested his cheek on Bran's thigh.  The man stiffened, and for a moment Feynriel feared he would be pushed off.  But finally Bran sighed, muttered something that Feynriel could have known if he'd chosen to, and resumed reading.

     An eternity or two passed, during which the ceiling of the Gallows bled away to reveal the sky, and a piece of the Black City drifted past, chilling them within its ominous shadow.  Feynriel could have known what was there, too -- but while he no longer cared whether he lived, he did care _how_ he died, and he did not like pain enough to send any part of himself to that place.  The thought of _what might be_ made him tremble.

     Bran's hand drifted down onto Feynriel's head, and his fingers began a gentle massage of his scalp, and suddenly the City was gone, hidden behind blue sky and white clouds.

     "Thank you," he whispered.

     "Don't be absurd," Bran replied.

#

     The next book that Bran offered him was not a novel.  Its spine read _Tome of the Slumbering Elders_ , and it was a journal, of sorts -- of a young elf who was something called a dreamer.  In the book, he wrote of his struggles with demons and doubt.  Familiar struggles.

     Feynriel read it all, and looked up at Bran, to find the man watching him.  "This is what I am?  This... dreamer?"  Somniari, the world whispered at his human self.  The word did not matter; the _concept_ was power. Knowledge was power.

     Bran shrugged.  "Do I look like an elf or a mage?  I found that thing at a junk shop.  Clearly it's unimportant."  He conjured another book and leaned back on the sand dune where they sat, getting comfortable.  "You may keep it."

#    

     He began to look forward to Bran's visits.  To be sure, it was better to spend time quietly listening to the man read, or watching him stare at mountains or the stars, than it was to sit alone and listen to the demons' cajoling.  But after awhile, even when Bran was not present, the demons troubled him less.  It was not that the whispers were any softer, the offers any less tempting; they simply _meant_ less.  The monsters' power diminished because he gave them less of it.

     He began to understand what this meant, slowly, as a series of small introspections rather than one great epiphany.  Often it was Bran's acerbic comments which forced him to reevaluate his assumptions:  of the demons, who seemed increasingly desperate to terrorize or entice him, to no avail; of the Fade, which became less incomprehensible and more clear by the day; of himself, and his own lack of helplessness.  Eventually he could no longer deny the truth:  that he was not dying.  That he could wake up any time he wanted to; he was not trapped in the Fade.  That he could do anything else he pleased, for the Fade was his to command, and the demons were as nothing before him.

     That he stayed here, and kept seeking out Bran, because he wanted to.

     That Bran came back to him, and was there to be found, because _Bran_ wanted to.

     He began watching Bran more.  It was the full-on view of his face that Feynriel liked best, and that he could only see when Bran was in repose -- which, fortunately, he often was here in dreaming.  Bran never seemed to mind when Feynriel stared at him for hours on end, memorizing his cheekbones, the soft curve of his lips, the warmth of his dark eyes -- so often contrasted by the coldness of his words.  But Bran's fingers, when he massaged or caressed or prodded Feynriel with what seemed to be negligent disinterest, were as soothing as ever.

     Things were never what they seemed in the Fade, and Feynriel had grown adept at seeing through any illusion.  Just as suddenly as the Fade had begun to make sense to him, Bran, too, became clear, and eventually Feynriel knew the truth as he knew his own name.

     "You're lonely," he said to Bran, one day as they sat at the top of Sundermount, gazing out over the world.  "That's what draws you to me.  You -- "

     He was surprised when Bran abruptly stood, glaring at him for the first time in real annoyance.  "I do not come here to be _insulted_."

     "Insulted?"  Feynriel had just been making an observation; Bran usually encouraged that.

     "You think me as transparent as you?  As this place?  I am _not_ another demon for you to manipulate."  And at once he began to fade.

     Feynriel inhaled in shock, pushing to his feet.  "Wait."  Bran kept fading.  "Please!  Please, I -- I owe my life to you!"

     At this Bran stopped, half-translucent, and fully furious.  "You," he said, his voice dripping with contempt, "have saved _your own_ life.  You could have done it at any time, if you'd had the wherewithal to simply _trust_ yourself.  And if all you want of me is that I 'save' you -- "

     "No, that isn't it at all, please -- "  He knew, as he knew his own name, that if Bran left, Feynriel would never see him again.  The Fade was his to control, but only to a point.  Bran was no mage, but he had always done as he wished within his dreams; his mind was stronger than Feynriel's.  That was why Feynriel had always admired him -- and why he knew he might lose Bran now.

     He grabbed Bran's arm, though his hand nearly passed through; Bran had no more substance than a demon in that moment.  Feynriel did not try to will him solid or keep him in dreaming.  Just the thought of forcing Bran to do his bidding -- like a demon -- was revolting.  "Please.  I don't want anything of you."

     "Liar."  Bran squared off against him, his face ice.  "I spend my days drowning in liars, _serrah_ , and I see no reason to tolerate this in my dreams as well.  Good _day_."

     "You."  The sky rumbled, suddenly clouded.  Feynriel's anguish pattered around them in fat warning drips.  The word hurt to speak, and the truth that he thought he knew so well was not the truth that stared at him now, through hostile brown eyes and a mouth that had never once smiled in all the time Feynriel had known it.  But Bran waited, and did not fade further, and that meant he was listening -- so Feynriel spoke as quickly as he could, trying to get it all out, trying to speak the shape of his thoughts.  "You are -- I want -- you."  Maker, he'd been so wrong.  " _I_ am lonely.  Please, Bran, don't go.  I, I don't want to be here, not alone, and I don't want to go back to the real world, no one cares about me there the way you do -- "

     "Hush.  For flames' sake."  Bran sighed and turned back to him, and Feynriel wanted to weep as he saw the man's shape grow clearer and more solid.  "I cannot abide _whining_."

     Abashed, Feynriel lowered his eyes and pulled away, but Bran touched his chin, making him look up.

     "You have some odd thoughts about me, young man," he said, and Feynriel could feel him trying to be stern.

     "You have them about me, too."  He did not want to sound defensive.  Then Bran would think him even younger.

     "I have been trying not to."

     "Why?"

     "I told you:  I come here for peace and quiet.  And no one _wanting_ anything of me."

     Feynriel turned away.  "I have been trying not to."

     Behind him, he felt Bran's sigh.  "Well, _this_ is a mess.  Can't you just go back to being quietly miserable nearby while I read a book?"

     "Is that really the me you want?"  Feynriel wrapped his arms around himself, remembering what it had felt like to be so fragile and torn.  He did not want to go back to that self.

     "No, no, don't be ridiculous.  It just seemed politic to ask."  Bran made a disgusted sound.  " _Politic_.  Now I have to worry about that sort of thing in my dreams, too."

     "I'm sorry."

     "Yes, _I know_."  Bran shook his head, finally, and sat down.  The chair had become a familiar-looking couch; Feynriel suspected it was a couch that Bran coveted, somewhere in the real world.  He moved to sit down on the floor beside it, as he had always done while Bran lounged or sat or pretended to sleep.  If nothing else, he could still take comfort in Bran's presence.

     Bran flicked the almost-pointed tip of his ear.  "Now you're being _deliberately_ obtuse."

     "What?"

     Bran sighed -- and though it did not show in his face, Feynriel knew his unease as he shifted aside, making room on the couch for another body.  Bran did not hope.  He was not the sort of man who hoped.  He simply waited, prepared to react to whatever Feynriel did, either way.

     So of course Feynriel climbed up on the couch to lie beside him.  After a moment, Bran rolled onto his side, putting a hand on Feynriel's belly.

     "No one lies with me that does not want something," Bran said.  Feynriel frowned; there was something heavy and troubled in the man's face, though he spoke with his usual dry nonchalance.  "Money, or favors, or leverage."

     Feynriel frowned in puzzlement.  "What do those things mean in dreams?"

     "Yes.  Well.  That is a good question."  His hand, which had been drawing circles on Feynriel's belly, slipped under his shirt.  "You exist in the real world, however."

     "I don't have to.  I could bring the whole of myself here, if I wanted."  He did not know why or how this was possible.  Even mages weren't supposed to be able to bodily breach the Fade, at least not without a lot of blood or lyrium to smooth the way.  Yet Feynriel could.  Bran raised eyebrows at this.

     "Perhaps you should," he said gently.  "I made inquiries at the Gallows, a few wakings ago.  You have been in an enchanted slumber for some while.  They will kill you or make you Tranquil, soon."

     Feynriel looked away.  Once he would not have cared.  But then, once, neither would Bran.

     In the meantime, Bran had gotten his patched old tunic off and shirt unlaced to the navel, and now caressed the unimpressive expanse of Feynriel's torso.  Feynriel had worked at the docks once, some while ago, and that had begun to put muscle on his too-human shoulders -- but then the nightmares had begun and he'd lost that job, and months of being stuck in a Gallows cell had taken their toll.  It embarrased Feynriel that he was not more beautiful naturally.  He knew that he could make himself beautiful, if he wanted --

     "Don't you dare," said Bran, brushing lips over one nipple.  This felt strange and right and almost painful in its power, and Feynriel bit his lip, jerking a little.  "You're pleasant enough to look at."

     "I know you prefer experienced lovers," Feynriel began, as an apology.

     "You have no idea what I prefer."

     Feynriel thought about this, and realized it was true.  He also realized he had not known, until now, that Bran even thought of him this way.  It made him frown.  "How can you conceal yourself from me?  I don't understand."

     "Magic," said Bran, reaching up to cup his face.  He sighed.  "You're so young.  You could be my son."

     Which made Feynriel think of Vincenzo, and realize that at some point the man Feynriel despised and regretted more than any other had done this with his mother, to make him.  He grimaced.

     "Oh, for the Maker's sake, what are you -- "  Bran made a face as he caught the backwash.  " _Stop_ that.  This is a significant moment."  He pressed close to drag his teeth along Feynriel's collarbone.  Feynriel shuddered, so exquisitely near to pain was the sensation.

     "Sh-shall I become older, for you?"  Feynriel had never done this, but he felt certain that he could.  And time meant nothing, in the Fade.  He could be the same age as Bran easily.

     "No, no.  You haven't earned that."

     "But -- "

     " _No_ , I said.  I have done far more depraved things than make love to someone half my age, for the Maker's sake; I am not ashamed.  Just count yourself lucky you've found someone of sufficient age and experience to make this good for you.  A wonder the Templars haven't been at you yet; I suppose being demon-plagued has done one good thing for you."  His body shifting to cover Feynriel's, Bran nuzzled at his ears, licking the softly-pointed tips, and Feynriel cried out, clutching at Bran's sleeves and trying to wriggle out of his skin.  "Ah, just like an elf; interesting."

     "I -- I, that -- "

     "Yes, I know."  He felt Bran smile against the side of his face.  "Let your hair down for me." 

     Unwilling to move away from that marvelous tongue, Feynriel simply imagined his braid loose and his hair a tangle beneath his head; Bran sighed and moved to cup and curl fingers into it.

     "Nnh... do you want... me to be a-an elf?  Ah, Maker, Creators, _ah_ \-- "  When Bran's teeth nibbled at the curve of his ear, Feynriel thought perhaps he would melt away and turn to spirit.  This was a dangerous thought in the Fade, of course, but somehow the pleasure made it safe; it reminded him that if he lost control of his body, he would no longer be able to feel.  With every touch, Bran reaffirmed his reality.

     "No.  I do not want you to 'be an elf'."  Bran's fingers kneaded his scalp, as they had done before, though it had not felt so good before.  Or perhaps it was only that he kept licking at Feynriel's ears, and Feynriel felt the pull of each stroke deep in his groin.

     "Do... do you want me to -- "

     Bran sighed in exasperation and kissed him.  It was soft, and shivery, and wetter than Feynriel had imagined.  When Bran's tongue slipped along his bottom lip, Feynriel gasped in reflex, and then was startled when Bran's tongue followed the gasp in.  The gentle probe of it made him think suddenly of other kinds of gentle probing, which he had only witnessed in dreams before now.  But then, this was just a dream, too.

     Bran pulled out of his mouth with a satisfied crinkling of his eyes.  "Do shut up," he said.  "You're really quite alluring, when you're not lurking about waiting to die; I must concentrate if I'm to go the distance."

     _I'm afraid I want you please take everything._

     "Now, now."  Bran's voice was a purr, roughening just a little as he shut his eyes for a moment.  "You'll have me come apart on you, with thoughts like that." 

     And Feynriel stared at him, because those were impossible words to hear together:  Bran, and coming apart.

     When Bran deemed Feynriel sufficiently inflamed, he got up from the couch to undress, and glowered at Feynriel when he started to simply will his clothes away.  " _No_ ," Bran said testily, "you should take them off, and you should let me _see_ you take them off, and if you had a dram of sophistication I would demand that you do it slowly, looking at me..."

     He trailed off as Feynriel swallowed and tugged off his homespun shirt -- too quickly, but slowed by the fact that his hands were shaking too much to get it off in one try.  Bran did not move while he did this, expression as guarded as ever; still, it was telling that he had stopped unbuttoning his doublet, and that his eyes followed Feynriel's hands, which made them shake all the harder.  When Feynriel stood to untie the drawstring of his pants -- he never dreamt himself in Circle robes -- Bran hissed him still and came over, his gaze fixed on the prominent lump tenting the threadbare cloth.

     "You're doing it wrong," he murmured, sliding a hand around to the small of Feynriel's back and pulling him close.  Bran's other hand cupped that lump through the rough cloth, rolling the heel of his palm along its length as if he did such things every day.  And when Feynriel grabbed at the loosened doublet and pressed his face into Bran's shoulder to muffle his scream, Bran made a satisfied sound.  "That's much better."

     He spent awhile at that, tormenting Feynriel before finally allowing him to drop the pants, and then -- cruelly, while Feynriel stood there twitching with the urge to either cover himself or stroke himself to frantic release -- he stepped back to finish tugging off his own clothing.  Underneath he was shockingly pale and shockingly lean, the long corded lines of his body accentuated by an occasional light down of shockingly copper hair.  That hair was a deeper color, almost burgundy in the Fade's strange light, where it gathered 'round the half-flaccid penis that he revealed -- eventually, slowly, watching Feynriel's hunger and plainly reveling in it.  When Feynriel licked his lips, Bran smiled, for the first time since they had met.  It was just a thin curve of a thing, like the moon on a dry cold night.

     "You know the theory?"

     Feynriel nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

     He had not been prepared for the smooth warm weight of a man in his mouth.  Or that the steady glide of it, as Bran showed him how to suckle, how to lick, how to roll his lips over his teeth and curve his neck to relax his throat, would feel like being stroked with velvet.  Or that being stroked in his _mouth_ could feel good -- so good that Feynriel fumbled down below and took himself in one shaking hand.  Then Bran sighed and cupped his head and threaded fingers into his hair, tugging him back.  He was nowhere near half-flaccid, not anymore.  When he loosened his grip on Feynriel's hair, Feynriel tried to go back; Bran had to draw his hips out of easy reach.

     "That is quite enough," he said, his voice breathier than usual.  "And here you've driven yourself to distraction; impatient child.  What shall we do next, hmm?  So many possibilities."  His hand coaxed Feynriel up, then back onto the couch.  "Open your legs for me -- yes, like that.  Ah, lovely."  And for a few blissful moments they did nothing but touch, rubbing scratchy bearded face against Feynriel's smooth one, belly against belly, lips against throat, legs among legs, teeth against skin.  When Bran reached between them to stroke them together, Feynriel shouted Bran's name, and somewhere in the distance thunder rolled.

     "Please, give me -- "  He blurted the words, and then stopped, because his thoughts were too a-jumble, his will inchoate; beyond the walls of the room the demons had fled, terrified of being torn apart by the madness that seemed to have consumed him.

     "Give you?"  Bran pushed himself up, thrusting shamelessly against him; his gaze was hot and variegated as tigereye.  "So you aren't as sheltered as I thought.  As you like, then -- " 

     And he turned Feynriel over onto his belly, coaxing his hips up.  It was still a dream; when Bran whispered hot in his ear of making himself ready, Feynriel felt the meaning of it.  When Bran tested him with fingers, the fingers were wet and slick, and when Bran pushed into him, his body yielded in a slow, exquisite stretch.

     "Maker," Bran breathed, once he was fully seated.  His free hand stroked Feynriel's hip.  "You are sweet as _dreams_.  And... I think... hnh, I think you have been very patient..."  His hips began to flex, just the slightest of movements, and because he knew what Feynriel should feel, Feynriel felt it, and sobbed with the wonder of it. 

     And the delight of Bran's rough breath and occasional licks against his ear, and the grip of Bran's hand on his own where it clutched at the couch-fabric, and the rasp of that fabric, so much softer than the cheap cloth he was used to, against the aching tension of his cock.  He came sooner than he should have, cracking open and spilling out all the things the demons said they craved of him; he gave it into Bran's deft hand and Bran laughed, breathless, in his ear.  Then Bran's arm tightened 'round him, and he shifted his weight and held Feynriel down and rode him steadily and brutally and until Feynriel's cries had become a single wavering wail.

     At last Bran's rhythm faltered, and he made a raw sound in which the word _Feynriel_ was embedded like an unpolished gem, and then he gave back everything Feynriel had lost.

     It was the third time he had ever said Feynriel's name.

     They curled together in the long slow cooling that followed.  And when Bran sighed and murmured an apology and faded back into the waking world, Feynriel kept lying where Bran had spent him.  But he was content, because Bran had left his peace behind, like a blanket that could be felt but never seen.

#

     There is no time, in the Fade.  But there was a semblance of it, and when Feynriel let Bran find him again, Feynriel's hair was nearly a foot longer, and his clothes were well-made, of fine cloth.  Bran, however, was the same.

     "Interesting," he said, looking Feynriel up and down.  "They said you'd vanished from the Gallows, fading away in your sleep like a ghost.  That rather handsome and paranoid young Knight Captain declared that the demons had taken you."

     "Tevinter," Feynriel said.  They stood in a dream of the Viscount's library, at which Bran kept looking around in distaste.  "I went to find someone who could teach me to master my skills."

     "And you were successful, obviously."  Then Bran frowned a little.  "Since it was barely a week ago that you disappeared, may I assume you've spent your apprenticeship in the Fade?  How convenient."

     "Yes."  Bran hated this place, did not want it in his dreams.  Feynriel listened and heard the echo of birds and bells, and then they stood upon one of the disused piers at the better end of the Docks, where Bran had once gone to relax before he'd become the arguably second-most important man in the city.  Unsurprisingly, the change of venue did not seem to please him.

     "How kind of you to let me know you weren't eaten," he said in an unkind tone.  "Now, I suppose, you are a magister?  Which means you want something of me.  Something _more_ , I mean; clearly you have already had what you wanted most."

     "Did you fear for me?"  Feynriel stepped closer to him, and Bran turned a very cold shoulder to him.  "Did you mourn me?"

     "Don't be absurd," Bran replied, which was not an answer.  And which was of course an answer in itself.

     Feynriel touched his shoulder.  "Will you read to me?"

     "Oh, certainly.  The Viscount's private papers, I imagine?"

     "I have _Hard in Hightown_ volume twelve.  I've been saving it."  He conjured it, held it out.  Bran glanced at it but did not take it.  "Will you touch my hair while you do it?"

     "This is transparent," Bran snapped, "and beneath you."

     "Yes.  You deserve someone who is better at seduction.  I learned all I know from demons, I'm sorry."

     Then Bran glowered at him.  "I should think you learned at least a little from _me_."

     Feynriel smiled, just a slight curve of a thing, and stepped 'round to face him.  This time Bran did not turn away.  "Will you be with me?"

     "Is that poetry, or a euphemism?  For flames' sake."

     Feynriel ducked his eyes.  "Will you make love to me again?  Will you... will you love me, after?"

     "Ugh, too direct."  Bran rolled his eyes in horror.  "Have I taught you nothing of subtlety?"

     Feynriel stepped closer still, and this time leaned close -- not touching him, but getting close enough to breathe his scent, scent his wishes.  "What if I come to you in the real world?"

     Bran was silent for a moment, and then he leaned back for a good look at Feynriel.  His face was as still and unreadable as every nobleman and foreign dignitary in the Free Marches had ever seen it, and yet Feynriel knew the truth.  Nothing was as it seemed, in this place.

     He would have to learn, soon, whether that held true in places where wishes had no power and thoughts had no shape.  In the meantime... he wished, with all his heart.  He offered all the peace he possessed within him, and all the dreams that were his to command.

     "Perhaps," Bran said at last, in a grudging tone.  "But only if you can sit _quietly_ nearby.  In the real world, I have work to do."

     "I think I can do that."

     "Hmm.  I suppose we'll have to see, then, won't we?"  Then he turned to gaze out over the harbor, saying nothing more.  But Feynriel knew.

     They stayed there, Bran watching the waves and ships, Feynriel watching Bran, until the dream faded, perchance to wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Goddamn it, people on Tumblr. Quit tormenting me with interesting things!! This was triggered by me suddenly noticing Bran's cheekbones, and the fact that Feynriel's kind of a snarky thing when you talk to him. Cheekbones + snark = match made in the Fade.


End file.
